No 'golden age' in the Senate

Intransigence has a natural ally in the Senate’s arcane procedures, most notably in the filibuster and the “hold.” The latter is a kind of procedural tantrum by a single senator who wishes to obstruct a bill or block a nominee. Both of these have been available to senators from time immemorial, but as recently as 30 years ago, they were employed sparingly, if not always sensibly. Today, the threat of a filibuster is encoded in the DNA of the Senate calendar and has assumed a more retrograde form in blocking even the motion to proceed to debate. In an institution that professes to deliberate, the obstruction of deliberation negates its reason for being. And it is used by whichever party finds itself on the short end of the count.

What was true of the Senate in the past and what prevails to this day is that long, continuous service promotes a sense of camaraderie that transcends party lines. It is a feeling that senators conduct their business in the face of an uncomprehending and often hostile world, that no one but another senator can truly appreciate how hard they work and a dread — not borne out, however, by reelection figures — that disaster lies just around the corner. These feelings, perhaps, explain the haste with which Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota rushed to the defense of his nominal adversary, Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, when Lott extolled Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.) on his 100th birthday by saying that the country would have been better off if the then-segregationist had been elected president in 1948. Or why Reid protected Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) when party activists were clamoring for his removal from the Democratic Caucus. That bond baffles outsiders but has been well-understood by
senators over the years. And despite the numerous changes from decades past, it still has the capacity to transcend partisanship and influence them in unpredictable ways.